The Most Important Arizona Election You’ve Never Heard Of
Candidates are vying for three seats on the state corporation commission, which has tremendous power over energy decisions.
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Created in 1912 under the state’s constitution, the Arizona Corporation Commission regulates the state’s water and power utilities and determines how much customers can be charged, how much profit utilities can make, and how Arizona’s power grid is built and operated, along with other responsibilities. The state is one of 10 where the commissioners are elected and are separate from the state’s other branches of government, meaning only elections and lawsuits can hold them accountable.
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“The commissioners will be constructing the future of our state, and whether that state is going to be livable, whether it’s going to be a state where people can afford to raise their families and whether it’s a place where we can coexist with the environment,” he said.
Just a few years ago, it seemed Arizona was close to setting a path to relying on an electricity mix made up entirely of renewable energy by 2050 thanks to a bipartisan plan from the ACC to reach that goal.
But the plan ultimately unraveled. Since Republicans took four of the commission’s five seats in 2022, they have consistently approved new natural gas plants and are attempting to roll back what standards for renewable electricity still exist, though the state’s largest utilities have implemented their own clean energy goals.
The commission’s decisions have prioritized “making it easier for utilities to continue expanding and investing in fossil fuel infrastructure, which is historically much more profitable for them but much more expensive for ratepayers,” said Keriann Conroy, a research associate for the Energy and Policy Institute, a pro-clean energy watchdog organization. “And of course, has a lot of climate and health and environmental impacts.”
The ACC has “abandoned” its duty to protect Arizonans” in favor of profit, says environmental lawyer Emily Doerfler. “The people of Arizona do not matter to the corporation commission.”
This year, two major actions have dominated the headlines about the commission. The first was a decision approving a rate hike from APS that increased customers’ bills by roughly 8 percent, while also adding a surcharge for rooftop solar customers. That action also allowed utilities to build new power plants without first going through a rate hike case that allows public comment on the plan. The second decision expanded UNS Electric’s natural gas-powered Black Mountain Generating Station without an environmental review, which reversed 50 years of precedent and a vote from the commission’s Line Siting Committee that required the project to undergo such a review.
The first action, climate groups argue, raised costs for customers to subsidize the utility’s continued consumption of fossil fuels despite its own studies finding that maintaining its coal-fired plants is uneconomical and that transitioning to renewables sooner would save it and ratepayers money. The ACC even went so far as to amend APS’s own plan, removing a $100 million fund the utility proposed for communities impacted by the coal-fired power plants eventually shutting down.
The Black Mountain Generating Station decision led to legal action. Western Resource Advocates, the Sierra Club and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a former corporation commissioner herself, separately filed lawsuits appealing the commission’s decision.
UNS Electric plans to add four new gas-powered plants to its Black Mountain facility at 50 megawatts each, for a total of 200 MW. The utility argued that it was not under the jurisdiction of the commission or subject to an environmental review because each of the plants was under 100 MW.
Arizona law requires a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility for power plants over 100 MW, and opponents of the ACC’s action say the new plants should be considered for their combined power output. The commission’s Line Siting Committee rejected the company’s argument in a 9-2 vote, arguing the commission had jurisdiction as the combined power of the plants at the single facility exceeded 100 MW. But the commissioners sided with the utility.
Doerfler, with Western Resource Advocates, said the ACC decision is just the latest example showing the commission has “abandoned” its constitutional duty to protect Arizonans, especially rural ones, “over and over and over again” to instead prioritize utility profits. “The people of Arizona do not matter to the corporation commission,” Doerfler said.
As essentially the state’s fourth branch of government, the ACC almost exclusively has the power to either end or continue Arizona’s reliance on fossil fuels, she said. That would include decisions like whether to mandate a quicker end to coal-fueled plants like APS’s Four Corners Power Plant.
“That means that the emissions that are coming from this coal plant in the next year are almost directly in the hands of the Arizona Corporation Commission,” Doerfler said.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2024/10/arizona-corporations-commission-utilitiy-election/
